MOBILE, Alabama -- The University of South Alabama Children’s & Women’s Hospital is holding two public events to dedicate its 195,000-square-foot expansion.

The official dedication is Thursday, Sept. 12, at 4:30 p.m., and events will include a performance by a children’s choir of patients and former patients. There will also be testimonials from those who have been helped by the hospital.

On Sunday, Sept. 15, the hospital will hold an open house from 2 to 5 p.m. Both events will include tours of the expansion, including its dining room, teen lounge, Treehouse play area, patient rooms and operating suites.

Also, the USA Committee of the Whole will meet Thursday before taking part in the dedication. Last week, Owen Bailey, hospital administrator, led members of the USA Foundation Board of Directors on a tour of the new wing after the board’s Sept. 5 meeting, held at the hospital.

The second floor of the new wing has a 20-bed Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and an expansion of the Wiseman Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, which will include 12 private NICU rooms.

The first floor includes eight operating suites with 40,000 square feet of space, up from the previous space of 11,000 square feet. The first floor also houses the new dining room, with a capacity for 170. The bottom level is a parking garage.

USA officials broke ground on the project in November 2010. The construction cost was $45 million, from an overall budget of $72.6 million.